Zatoichi's Flashing Sword (1964)

The blind swordsman’s 7th film has Ichi paying a debt to a young woman that helped him. Whilst doing so he gets embroiled in a fight between two bosses over control of a profitable venture. It’s less complex than what’s come before, but the emotions are of the usual high standard.
There’s a lot of comedy in the first half. People try to pull a fast one on the blind guy and the blind guy attempts the same on the sighted.
It’s nice to see him get some downtime, but the simplistic story is dragged out a little too long. When the sword does begin to flash, however, Ichi cuts a forest of enemies down like they were kindling.

3 pretexts out of 5